


PokeFae

by nightmare_kisser



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Challenge: to NOT use Roland as the antagonist, F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Pocket Marianne, Running away from your problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6132641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmare_kisser/pseuds/nightmare_kisser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pocket monsters? Nah, all the cool kids have Pocket Faeries nowadays. Pokemon to Pokefae. Har dee har.</p><p>Jokes aside, this is the most surreal thing Bog has ever encountered. Just this morning, he planned to go on one of his usual strolls into the woods to clear his head. Sometimes, he makes a discovery of a forest critter, or an abandoned treehouse, or a tree struck by lightning, or a beer bottle. Nothing major, just things to spot, then move on.</p><p>What he doesn't expect to find this time is a large primrose about to bloom, and once it does, to find a small woman with purple butterfly wings sleeping inside.</p><p>Now she tags along with him, peeking out from the pocket on his shirt, and wishes to explore his world, with him as her guide. What could possibly change in life, now that she's in it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	PokeFae

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting to find today.

Lately, to clear his head, Bogarius “Bog” McKinley has been taking hikes through the dense wood near his home, venturing to a hidden clearing he found somewhere amidst the towering trees and beyond a wall of brambles. And along the way, he always finds something.

Sometimes a chipmunk or squirrel; sometimes a new kind of bird; sometimes he finds a lost baseball, or a torn piece of fabric, or an abandoned campsite. Once, he found a decrepit old treehouse, slowly being swallowed back into nature. It had porn magazines in it, faded and met and withering. Sometimes he finds that a landmark tree has been struck by lightning, or he finds a lost shoe or forgotten flashlight or empty beer bottle.

Sometimes, he finds nothing new at all, only touches on everything familiar.

After work, between textbook reading for his classes at uni and sleeping, there is a time around dusk that is perfect for his hikes. Right as the air transitions between that happy medium of warm and cool, Bog finds himself in that precious green space, finds a nice spot to rest, lies down, and shuts his eyes while the scent of primroses dance in the spring air.

Oh, he remembers going fishing in the river nearby with his father while growing up, and he’s run away after the divorce to hide in these woods before, and sometime during his teenhood he’s come around these parts to smoke or sneak target practice with old cans and a rifle, or picked up a fallen branch and wielded it for kicks, but these woods never meant that much to him before.

Now… it’s his only place of amity and solace.

On this fine spring evening, Bog spreads out with his legs apart and his arms behind his head, and he looks up at the clouds in the fading sunlight. They are scattered and turning pink, the sky itself transitioning to a pastel violet. His lids lower to half-mast, and he fights a yawn.

Sometimes, humans need to re-commune with nature. Something gets lost in humanity when it cocoons itself in smartphones and Wi-Fi hotspots and OnDemand entertainment, comfortably imprisoned within four walls. Something valuable and simple gets overrun by material complexity, and once in a while, especially as of late, all Bog wants to do it avoid all of that.

He leaves his phone and cigarettes at home, comes out in as little clothing as he can stand given the weather, and he makes sure to touch the earth to his skin.

He can smell the fresh soil and the green of the grass; he can feel the breeze wafting between the trees, the subtle buzz of a bee. He rolls onto his side, stretching a hand out to run delicately across the plant life around him. A beetle crawls onto his hand, its exoskeleton vibrant and pearlescent. Its tiny legs tickle his rough skin.

It flies away.

Bog’s eyes refocus after the loss of the critter, and he spies a single, unusually large primrose that has yet to bloom. It’s surrounded in a circle of mushrooms; a faerie ring, his mother would call it. There are stories he’s been told, that faerie rings mark a portal where a fae has entered this world. He smiles a bit to himself. He props himself up on one elbow, reaching out to tenderly stroke the side of its petals, silently willing it to open. With a bloom so large, it will be very beautiful.

As the sun sets, and Bog starts to pull his hand away, there is a flicker of light that blinds him for a moment. He rubs his eyes, looks back at the flower.

It’s starting to open.

He stares, mesmerized; he’s seen ferns unfurl, but never a flower expand. It’s much quicker than he thought it would be, all the petals slowly falling from their upright state.

Hold on – there’s something inside it. An insect? It… looks like a butterfly. A monarch…? But no, it’s not orange…

Bog leans in closer, careful not to mash a mushroom with his palm.

A… a girl. It looks like a girl, but with large purple wings folded along her back. Her hair is short, windblown, a rich pine brown. She slowly yawns, sits up, rubs at her eyes with itty-bitty, long-fingered hands. Her ears wisp out long and thin at either side of her head, and her lips are rosy and full, her chin delicate. She’s covered in pollen, it thankfully hiding her nudity.

Bog blinks. He’s imagining this, right? He’s not high. He wish he were high, if only to explain what a trip this is. He looks away, at the woods around him, as if for a sign to confirm or deny the reality of this moment. When his gaze returns to the faerie in the flower, her eyes are open, a wide honey brown, and she’s blinking curiously at him, her position insecurely covering herself with a petal.

“Who are you!” she exclaims, startled, and glances around. “Are there more of you? –What are you _doing_ here?”

“Shouldn’t Ah be askin’ _you_ that?” he replies, automatic. He can’t believe this. He’s conversing with a _faerie._ “Faeries donnae exist!”

She reels back, offended. She drops the petal to folds her arms over her chest. “Humph. Shows what mankind knows. They tell romantic stories about us, ones our people _shared_ with them about our courts and practices and races, hoping they’d understand, and then they write them off as fantasy and deem us nonexistent. Well, fuck you.”

He bursts into laughter. “Faeries can curse; who knew?” His laughter turns slightly hysteric. Is this seriously happening? He’s not dreaming? This spicy little faerie is really here, speaking to him? He must be losing it… maybe he’s actually schizophrenic, and this is an elaborate visual and audio hallucination. This just can’t be real.

She rolls her eyes and hops down from the flower, fashioning together some clothing out of clover leaves and fallen petals, tying them together with the clover stems. She flies back up, some pollen still stuck in her hair and to her legs, and she points a scolding finger at Bog.

“Look here, Human. I was born into your world today to get the chance to explore it, have some adventure, and escape the people who won’t let me be myself. The last thing I need is some asshole saying I don’t exist, calling me out on my language, and possibly exploiting me to the world. But…”

The small winged woman sighs, straightening up to place her hands on her hips.

She relents, “But I also need a guide. I was going to have to befriend _one_ living creature or another with some sense in order to stay alive, so… I’ll cut you a deal. You swear an oath to me not to tell anyone about me – because at this point, maybe it’s a _good_ thing mankind has forgotten us, given how destructive in nature and _to_ Nature you all are – and swear to protect me – although I _can_ do that myself, but with how _big_ everything is, I just need a little help keeping an eye out – and in return, I can use my magic to help you out. I’m more of a fighter, but… There are a few spells I can cast, a couple potions I know how to make. So, tell me your wish, and I can help out. Do we have a deal?”

“Hmm,” Bog considers with a smirk, hand to his chin. “All Ah have to do is let you hang ‘round and keep my mouth shut, and in return I geh me own personal faerie? I don’ see a downside. How could anyone pass this up?” He holds out a finger for her to shake. “You’ve a deal.”

She goes to shake his finger when he pulls it away.

“But! The second you say, ‘Hey, listen!’, I’m swatting you like a fly.”

She frowns in confusion, obviously not part of the same world enough to get the reference, but groans and nods. “Sure, whatever. Shake on it?”

He returns his pinkie finger, and she takes it in both hands to bob up and down with him.

“Cool. Great. Thank you,” she says, sarcastic at first, but the thanks sound more genuine. She flies up and dives down into the breast pocket of his unbuttoned flannel shirt. She reaches over and pokes his chest. He can’t even feel it, it’s so light. He only sees it happen. “Get moving, Human. The sooner I’m out of this meadow, the better.”

“Yes, _your majesty,_ ” he snorts, pushing himself to his feet. She makes no remark, seems to go oddly quiet. He starts walking, and he can feel her weight in his pocket. She weighs no more than a mouse. “And I have a name, you know. It’s Bog.”

“ _Bog?_ ” she wrinkles her nose. “Humans have strange names.”

“Oh? Then what’s yours? Something exotic like ‘Arwen’ or ‘Galadriel,’ no doubt.”

Once again, a reference wasted on a creature that isn’t part of his world. “If you must know,” she sniffs, “It’s Marianne.”

Oh. Well, that is a rather normal name. He shrugs, which jostles her a bit. “Begging yer pardon. It’s not every day a human meets a fae. Easy to think you’d be a lot different than us.”

“We’re not as dissimilar as you’d assume,” she replies, admiring the forest from this point of view, her hands gripping the lip of his pocket. “We have names like yours. We have families, technologies, royal courts and rulers, territories with governors. We have cities, towns, rural areas. We have modes of transportation for those who can’t fly, and we have fashion and entertainment. We lack electric technology and sciences beyond our own studies of biology and other natural things, but we have magic and alchemy, and ways to cross Realms. So really, it’s a trade-off there, but otherwise, why are you so surprised? A civilization is a civilization, and every civilization has a society, and every society has functions and rules.”

Bog thinks on this a while. She makes a valid point, jagged and defensive as it came out. She’s a spitfire, this one. Easily angered; not unlike himself in most situations. He often doesn’t know how to respond to people, so he has a moment of panic, insecurity, awkwardness, before lashing out, using his temper as a shield, as his therapist once put it. This small brunette fae seems to be the same way, snapping at him because she’s scared. Rambling because she doesn’t know what else to say. It’s a whole new world, and she doesn’t know how else to react.

He can appreciate a kindred spirit.

After a pause, she speaks again. “So… do you live alone?”

“Not as of yet,” Bog replies. “I’m twenty-five, but I live with my mother. I have half saved of what I need to move out. As soon as I have enough, I’m out of there.” He looks around him. “…I’ll miss this forest, though.”

“Well, great,” Marianne remarks, ignoring his sentiments. “Now I have to be on guard all the time.”

“Not often,” Bog informs her. “My mother has a job, too, you know. She’s an editor. Sometimes she brings her work home, but most of the time, she’s at the office, reading over other people’s work before it’s published.”

“What kind of stuff does she edit?” the faerie wants to know, more to make small talk than because she actually cares.

Bog sighs. “Romance novels, mostly.”

Marianne chokes, torn between a burble of laughter and a scoff of distaste. “…Oh.” She shakes her head. “My sister reads far too many of those. I find them… _uncomfortable._ Who wants to read about mushy love and a bunch of sex?”

Bog raises his hands, pulls a frown. “Not me.”

“It’s always unrealistic, too,” the faerie observes.

“Absolutely. The girl will somehow have fifty orgasms, and for some reason, they always talk a lot during the sex. And usually about very vital plot, or in really cheesy dirty talk.”

“Yeah! And the sex is always so random, too, at the most inopportune times. They’ll be in the middle of an investigation, and the character should be distraught over a family member or something – or it’s less serious, like it’s just over dinner, but suddenly they’re fucking on the table because someone ate a strawberry slowly. Or they say one caring thing to the other? And suddenly they’re making out which leads to banging, and it feels like a waste of time.”

Bog laughs. “Exactly! I never understood the appeal.”

“And then there’s the _fantasy_ and _historical_ romance,” Marianne groans. “Where there are shapeshifters taking different forms to ‘keep it interesting,’ or changelings that fall in love with the human they replace, or the setting is some old era where no one bathed so you _know_ the sex is smelly and gross, and less hot than they pretend it is just because it’s, like, the taboo of a knight and his stable boy.”

Bog has to stop walking to double over with laughter, and Marianne flies out of his pocket to perch on his shoulder, laughing with him, slapping besides her.

“I don’t know how my mother reads so many and doesn’t go blind,” he finally articulates, shaking his head and standing upright.

“Or braindead.”

“Or disillusioned with reality.”

Marianne peers up at the man, and pats his shirt collar. “You and I are going to get along famously, if you hate love and romance as much as I do.”

“Oh, _trust_ me,” Bog says, craning his neck to look at her, “No one hates love and romance more than I do.”

“Then you’ve changed my initial opinion about you,” Marianne smirks.

He raises a brow, but she doesn’t elaborate. She looks straight ahead, and so does he, starting to walk again.

Making it out of the forest, Marianne waits until houses and the sounds of people nearby come within range before she ducks back down into his pocket. He’s thankful she doesn’t glow, like some of the faeries in films. It makes it easier to keep her hidden.

Just barely audible to his ear, Bog catches Marianne marveling at some of the things they pass by, making commentary.

“Look at how large your homes are! How many humans can you fit in there? Look! What’s that? Those children are climbing on it. Oh! What animal is _that?_ What purpose do those boxes on sticks serve? Fuck me! Is that a ‘ _car’_?”

Discreetly, Bog offers her answers. “Usually we fit as many humans as there are bedrooms, give or take. That’s a park, with jungle gyms and swings. That’s a dog; a Doberman. Those are mailboxes, for the post. And _yes,_ that’s a car. A rather new model, too.”

“Your world is fascinating,” she says, flying up to his shoulder once they enter a street with no one on it. It’s quiet, save for the birdsong echoing from the trees. “I know I said it isn’t much different than ours, but – that was before I saw it for myself,” she admits.

“Well, there’s a lot more to see,” he reminds her. “Neighborhoods are just the start.”

“I can’t wait,” she says eagerly, and makes a yelp, scrambling to duck back to his shirt pocket when a man mowing his lawn comes around the side of his house. He waves at Bog, whom nods curtly in response.

One more turn, and Bog’s street opens up on their horizon. The sun is down, the streeplamps coming on. As they flicker to life, Marianne marvels at them. Bog walks up one yard, into a cramped and humble, but very bright and cheery home, with wildflowers in the windowsills.

Upon entering his home, with his mother not yet back for dinner, Bog gesutures around. “Let’s have a tour, shall we?”

Marianne flies from his pocket, fluttering freely in the space, skimming the ceiling and poking his light as he flicks it on, then dancing in the air to look at all of his possessions ashe points them out room by room.

“This is our living room, through here is the kitchen,” and he walks inside, turning on lights as he goes, “And down this hallway are the bedrooms. That door there is the bathroom.”

Finally, he retreats to his room, not quite waiting for Marianne to catch up. He starts to remove his button-up, remaining in the tank underneath. He runs a brush through his windblown hair, kicks off his shoes. Marianne comes in them, zooming through the air, overjoyed.

“I could sleep in a teacup! Amazing. I love how oversized everything is. Humans are fortunate to be giants in this giant world. In our world, we are proportionate the way you are in yours, but as soon as we come here… I realize we could build a city within the network of a single oak tree. It’s so cool.”

She flies around his room, fluttering to hover over certain objects as she inspects them, touches them, ever-curious. In some ways, her curiosity reminds him a bit of Ariel in Disney’s _Little Mermaid_ , but with less pouty teenage drama over a man.

The faerie inspects his books, his television and Xbox, his laptop, his guitar, his bed, his dresser, his DVDs, his stereo, his records, his framed photos.

She touches down on the topmost rung of his bookshelf and pads over to one photo in particular.

The last one he has of him and his parents together, before the divorce, before his dad left and never came back.

She walks up to it, and he’s about to protest it, cease any chain of questions before they arise. But then she touches her hand to the glass, right over child-Bog’s cheek.

In the photo, he’s perhaps eleven years old. His mother is to his left, her hand on his right shoulder. His father is to his right, giving bunny ears atop his son’s head. Everyone is smiling. His father’s smile is toothy and sly. His mother’s smile is closed-lipped and warm. His own smile is innocent and pleased, revealing just enough of a gap to show a missing tooth; the last of his baby teeth finally gone.

Bog doesn’t know why he keeps that photo. Half the time, he forgets it’s even up there. There is a slight film of dust over it, one that Marianne turns and flaps her wings to blow away. She flies up a smidge, touches Bog’s mother’s face, then his father’s. She looks over her shoulder at him, then flies to hover before his nose.

He expects her to comment on his smile or his eyes or his height being like his father’s, which they are. He expects to hear her ask what happened to his father, which he doesn’t know. He expects to hear her verbalize how happy they looked, or ask about the events of the day in the photo, or remark how much he’s changed since then, how’s he’s aged to something callous and grey.

Instead, she says something he _doesn’t_ expect.

“…You were a little shit when you were a kid, weren’t you?’

And with his simultaneous relief and disappointment evident on his face, he soon finds himself smirking, then nodding. He likes this faerie. She knows a troublemaker when she sees one.

He makes an open gesture. “Who says I stopped?”


End file.
